Although the home page of the Banbury Connections website has exhibited a picture of the new Great Western Railway Snow Hill Goods Warehouse for many months, news of its construction on the blog has been absent.
The new warehouse was commissioned back in Q2 2020 as part of a major plan to lift goods capacity at the railway's major stations. Readers of the blog would have noticed an earlier project at Marylebone.
For many years, Birmingham Snow Hill (on BC) has been constrained by a single goods road and, despite the lovely scratch built goods shed, a rather small goods shed for a station of its size. Thankfully, by cascading our buildings, the old Snow Hill goods shed moved to Wrexham General, Wrexham’s shed moved to Nottingham Victoria, Nottingham's shed was shifted to Porthmadog (Portmadoc in 1962) and Porthmadog provided a second goods shed for Aberystwyth!
By constructing a large warehouse and moving the truck bays onto the first floor, it was possible to run two goods tracks through the Birmingham yard. Therefore, the new building not only provided a far more realistic interpretation of the station's northern approaches but enabled greater operational flexibility.
With nearly 100 windows across four levels, two platforms, a double pitched roof and differential rail and road levels, the warehouse was a fairly complicated building to construct. We also encountered a number of challenges along the way, particularly concerning the roof trusses and brickwork at the top of the end walls. Notwithstanding, the new building's size has been a significant boost to the railway's aesthetics.
The new warehouse was commissioned back in Q2 2020 as part of a major plan to lift goods capacity at the railway's major stations. Readers of the blog would have noticed an earlier project at Marylebone.
For many years, Birmingham Snow Hill (on BC) has been constrained by a single goods road and, despite the lovely scratch built goods shed, a rather small goods shed for a station of its size. Thankfully, by cascading our buildings, the old Snow Hill goods shed moved to Wrexham General, Wrexham’s shed moved to Nottingham Victoria, Nottingham's shed was shifted to Porthmadog (Portmadoc in 1962) and Porthmadog provided a second goods shed for Aberystwyth!
By constructing a large warehouse and moving the truck bays onto the first floor, it was possible to run two goods tracks through the Birmingham yard. Therefore, the new building not only provided a far more realistic interpretation of the station's northern approaches but enabled greater operational flexibility.
With nearly 100 windows across four levels, two platforms, a double pitched roof and differential rail and road levels, the warehouse was a fairly complicated building to construct. We also encountered a number of challenges along the way, particularly concerning the roof trusses and brickwork at the top of the end walls. Notwithstanding, the new building's size has been a significant boost to the railway's aesthetics.
The new ballast and slab have been laid but the old goods shed remains in place. The blue VW van is on the path of the second goods track. If you look carefully to the left, the new ballast can be seen adjacent to the existing goods track.
The red bulldozer and Pickfords truck are currently sitting on the sites of the new warehouse platforms.
Beginning of window construction
Planning out the structure, dad was initially concerned that the warehouse's height would make the railway difficult to operate.
Cutout sheets.
Assembling the sheets and the finished window lintels.
Chris mortaring the bricks.
The completed front wall (from the inside)
A scale model of the Banbury Connections train shed sitting atop of the warehouse.
Between slightly differential truss heights, a slightly low end wall and slater's slate plastikard (which has to be cut into strips and glued in layers), the roof took considerably more time to add than initially projected.
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